Bonds
by Sphyni
Summary: Spike finds a girl begging for death in the streets. This girl tries running from her past, through fake ID's and attempted death, when one well tuned hand pulls her up from her grave.
1. Chapter 1

Bonds

Rating: PG-13 for now

Summary: Spike finds a girl begging for death in the streets.This girltries running from her past, through fakeID's and attempted death,when one well tuned handpulls her up from her grave.

* * *

The night was clear; the stars seemed a bit murky though. 'Must be the reddish tint to the moon tonight' He thought to himself as he headed to one of the bars. Spike had a few things on his mind that he needed to drink off. Mainly having to do with Angel's latest moodiness at Wolfram Heart. It seemed Angel was still pissed off about last week, when he got himself turned into a puppet and Spike had found it highly entertaining to taunt Angel endlessly about it. 'Bloody poofster's got his balls in a knot...'

He was so lost in his own mental cursing that he almost didn't hear the screaming down the long alley he was coming up on. He would have just simply passed it off as a normal everyday fight between two lovers or family members if it wasn't for the one phrase, 'You're a vamp, so kill me now!' Spike sped up his steps and looked down the alley, much to his surprise the one yelling, a girl that looked in her late teens or early twenties, had cornered a vampire up against a wall. Her odd pleads seemed to catch the shaggy looking vampire quite off-guard.

Once the shaggy vampire got over his initial shock of the girl begging for her life to be stripped from her, he took the upper hand and switched their positions, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and slamming her into the brick wall that he was up against just a moment before. "What made a pretty little girl like you come begging for death?" His curiosity got a hold of him as he stared into her eyes that looked as murky as the stars above.

"Does it matter...?" She responded, her voice now low and quiet. Her light brown eyes retreated from the vampires eyes and found the ground very interesting to stare blankly upon. Her matted red hair swayed limply in front of her face in the mild warm summer wind.

"Suppose not." He replied plainly as his face slipped into the vampire visage and within an instant had his teeth sunk deeply within the crook of the girl's neck.

Spike tried to acknowledge what he was seeing before him, but when he did he dismissed the shock and took off running into the alley, towards the vampire. He growled as he reached into his coat pocket to grab a stake, and quickly approached the two. Grabbing the vampire and tearing him off the girl, he slammed him against the other wall on the other side of the alley. "Mind if I cut in?" Before the other vampire could protest in shock and confusion, he blew up into dust as the stake entered the dead insides of his heart.

He turned around to the girl and quickly glanced over the bite wound; it was messy and oozing quickly. He quickly regretted having torn the vampire from the girl's throat so fast because doing so, the vampire's fangs had torn a larger two holes then what it should have been. Without immediate medical attention to the wound, he estimated that the girl wouldn't last more then 20 minutes. Turning his glance up to the girls face as he took the girls chin in his hand to force her to look at him he saw the distant murky look within her eyes.

"Why didn't you just let me die..." She quietly asked in a monotone voice, a tone which matched her currant image decently enough, but in a bad way. She looked cold, her shivering body an example of that. Her eyes were murky and her hair was matted to the side of her head. The deep, red blood dripped from her sickly, pale skin and onto a silver, silk blouse. It even started to trickle onto her long, flowing, dark green, gypsy style skirt.

"Bloody stupid bint. What's your problem?" He scolded harshly, yet having no effect in bringing a look of life to her distant face. "I have to get you help..." Spike simply stated as he tore a few inches of fabric from the bottom of her skirt and tied it loosely yet firmly around her neck and the bloody wound. Then taking the girl into his arms he jogged back to Wolfram Heart, which was not more than two blocks away.

* * *

Spike had, literally, ran the girl out of the elevator and up the stairs into the lab to Fred. Laying the girl, who had passed out on the way up the elevator, down onto one of the empty tables he explained how he came about the girl. Fred nodded "I need to get this wound closed up now, and give her a blood transfusion. Spike, I want you to go tell Angel."

"Don't need an extra hand then?" He offered

"No, it's a simple procedure. But Angel should be told. He'll want to talk to her after. Find out why she did this."

"And if I don't want to find out?"

"Spike..." She lowered her voice, getting slightly irritated, "now."

Spike raised his hands in defense, "Fine, I'll go tell peaches, but tell me when she wakes up." He pointed a finger at her before he turned and left, leaving Fred to deal with the girl.

Angel sat at his desk, sipping at a cup of warm blood and looking through some new files. He was still trying to get over the fact that the week before he had been a mere felt puppet for nearly half a week. Startled out of his thoughts as the doors to his office flew open, he glanced up to the door, but his expression darkened to hatred and irritation as the peroxide blonde vampire walked through and strode right up to his desk, leaning on the edge. Normally at Angel's darkened expression Spike would smirk in response, but instead Spike seemed to have a mildly worried expression lingering on his face.

"Looks like Fred's got herself a new patient boss."

Angel dropped the dark expression and listened up in curiosity, "Who?"

"Dunno who she is. Found her on the way to the bar, heard her screamin' at a vamp down an alley...but its strange." Spike paused, the next part he was still trying to figure out in his mind.

"What's strange about a vampire attack?"

"More like a human attack, Angel."

"A what?" Angel was baffled, 'was the girl a slayer, or potential?'

"Human attack, she had him pinned up against the wall yelling at him to kill her. Bloody confused, I was. But the bloke didn't refuse the easy meal; bit her nice and deep right there."

Angel nodded slowly taking in the information, "So you killed him and brought her here." He finished off for Spike, whom simply nodded. He grabbed his cup which he had placed back upon the desk and stood up, heading out of the room and to the lab where Spike had taken the new girl. Spike followed close behind.

* * *

Fred had quickly been able to finish the process of stitching the girl's neck up and started a blood transfusion. The girl was still out cold as she was put into a recovery room just off from the main lab. Writing up the last few notes about the girl that she had found out from going through a wallet, which was connected to a rope belt that was around her waist, the door to the room opened. "Angel, Spike. I just finished up here, she's on her second unit of blood, and it should do her good. She should wake up pretty soon too actually."

Angel nodded as he went to the side of the bed and glanced over the girl. She had been changed into a hospital gown because Fred had to check and see if there was any other damage on the girl's body. "Find out anything about her, who she is, where she's from?"

Fred grabbed a few items off of the table next to Spike, who had found the wall at the foot of the girls bed quite comfortable. She returned to Angel with the wallet. "A few ID cards, all different names and information though, 16 dollars, and a small mp3 player."

"Looks like she travels light." Spike commented with a faint smirk.

The girl began to come to; she moved her head to the opposite side that it was placed at and felt an awkward string of pain shoot through her neck. She flinched and raised an IV attached hand up to touch her neck. Feeling the bandage she frowned in response. Opening her eyes she found herself in a room that seemed like a hospital room but very small and looked like it was used as a file cabinet room. She also noticed a dark haired man leaning over the bed looking at her as she came to, a sweet brunette woman standing next to him, and at the end of the bed was the man that had held her back from her much yearned for death.

Fred saw the girl waking up and moved over to raise the back of the bed into more of a seated position. "You're finally awake, how do you feel?" she asked kindly.

As the girl shook her disoriented feeling from her mind she took another glance at the woman that began speaking to her, "Like shit..." she simply muttered.

"I could get you some painkillers if you wanted?" she offered. The girl shook her head in response.

"I don't need them...plus I deserve this..." Her voice was low and dark. "Where am I?" She asked as she diverted her attention to the IV stuck into her hand, trailing her fingers up the tube that attached to the blood bag a few feet away.

"Wolfram Heart, Do you know why you're here?" Angel answered and questioned.

The girl turned back to Angel, an annoyed frown drew across her lips, one much like Spike himself used. "Sure," She turned her vision over to Spike straight in front of her, "Blondie over there wouldn't let me die and get this meaningless existence be over with."

"You don't mean that," Fred protested worriedly.

"'Course I do."

Spike seemed nearly offended, 'the bloody bint's using my attitude.'

Angel looked down to the ID's in his hand and glanced through them, there were 3 in total. "What's your name?"

She glared at him as she snatched the ID's from his hand, not taking too kindly to people going through her things. "Pick one." She fumed, holding the three cards up in his face. "They don't matter, their just names." Her temper had quickly been dampened as she dropped the three cards onto her blanket that was over her lap.

Spike stepped up to the bed and tilted his head slightly, "Of course they don't matter pet, but I'd like to know the name of the kitten that threw that vampire into the wall begging for her own death." He raised his eyebrows and smirked, playing her pride against her.

She narrowed her eyes at his challenging words he threw at her and emitted an silent growl, "Riise Liam"

Spike smiled, he got the result he had wanted, and noticed a flinch from Angel at the mention of the name Liam, "So...Riise as in the candy, and Liam as in nancy-boy's old name." The comment gained him a growl from two parties.

"Not like the forsaken candy blondie, its spelled R-i-i-s-e!" Angel turned to Riise's outburst with an unnoticeable smile, he was beginning to like this girls attitude against Spike.

"Calm down kitten. I was only comparing to get things straight."

"I'm not a cat either. And who are you people anyways." She attempted to keep her anger down to a minimum as she had gotten another strong shock of pain run through her neck from her outburst; she clutched her neck with her IV hand. She became quiet and tried not to move, thinking she had already torn one of the stitches.

Angel sighed and motioned for Fred to get some painkillers for Riise. "Blondie over there is Spike; I'm Angel, the head at Wolfram Heart here. And the one that just stepped out is Fred. Now, where do you live and do you have any family that can…" He was cut off.

"My family's dead, and 'currently' I'm living in this room at the moment..." She quickly explained knowing where Angel was going with this. "So when I'm all done here I'll see what vacant place I can find in the warehouses...given all the room isn't taken up already." Her attention was drawn right back to her hands. Her eyes smiled at the purple hued scars marrying the skin of her wrists.

Angel seemed slightly taken back by the quick response, he quickly thought over a decision to try and get the girl back on her feet instead of going to live as a homeless. "You're not going back onto the streets. I've got a hotel; I will give you a room."

Riise glared, although she was in no condition to argue, she wasn't too happy about a decision being made for her. "...fine." She gave in, her eyes rose to the table behind Spike where her wallet, money, and music lay. Letting out a sigh she asked for her wallet.

"I don't think Angel will make you pay for the room luv." Spike said as he retrieved the items from the table for her. The wallet was a bulky little thing with lots of little pockets and such, dressed in the color of red with black zippers and a black feather with a few silver beads as a keychain on the main zipper of the wallet. The mp3 player was small and black with silver glossy buttons, the headphones wrapped around the small device.

"It's not that. I have to get my duffle bag from my room at that Inn I was at." She explained as she withdrew a key numbered 6 from one of the numerous pockets on the wallet.

"Spike can go and get it, he knows what Inn it was, and you're in no state to go too far right now." Angel protested, before giving Riise a chance to object he snatched the key from her hand and tossed it over to Spike who seemed slightly pissed off at the fact that he had been offered to retrieve Riise's bag against his will.

"Fine, I'll get the bag...but you owe me." He said to Angel before he turned and left to get the bag before it began to get light out.

Fred came back with a few pills and a glass of water, "Here, these should help." Riise sighed heavily in response and choked down the pills and water, the water felt cool running down her throat. It was then when she finally realised how dirty she felt, her hair was matted horribly and was in need of being washed, and she was sure that her skin was crawling.

She looked up to Fred with a change of face, her eyes seemed clear for the first time in a while and she managed a small smile, "How soon till I can have a shower? I must look more beaten up and dead then blondie is when he sleeps." She commented. Angel gave an odd look to her wondering how she knew Spike was a vampire, Riise seemed to catch on to Angels confusion and briefly explained. "When he took care of Mr McShaggyvamp he shifted his facial features."

"Oh, well then I could dismiss you as soon as the blood transfusion is done if you wanted, shouldnt be more then 10 more minutes." Fred replied, clearly much happier to see a kinder look upon the girls face.

* * *

Aproximately 15 minutes later Riise was up and out of bed, her clothes and possessions in hand and she followed Angel over into the hotel he owned. They passed a few doors, one of which Angel specified as his own, Riise kept track of the room number as Angel opened up another suite across the hall and a few doors down. Riise stepped inside and was truely amaised with the size of the place, it looked alot larger then a normal hotel suite she had seen before. As she walked through the large apartment-like suite she noticed that the place was fully fitted with everything needed for living, even a few entertainment items such as the large sterio sitting beside the desk at the opposite side of the room from the queen sized bed. The walls were a light lilac color with a soft fluffy jewel blue carpet. In the kitchen nothing seemed to be vacent, all the cupboards were filled with dishes and cutlery, the fridge held a few small things that kept well preseved, concentraited juice, a few frozen meals in the freezer. She finally made her way into the bathroom and smiled, unlike the rest of the light purple apartment, the bathroom had more of an exotic theme, black trim with tan/orange walls, the shower curtains were leapard print and there were a few candles sitting around the exterior of the tub's edge.

Riise smirked and turned around to Angel who had followed her around the suite, "I think this is my favorite room. The colors are perfect." She smiled as she commented, then went to move past Angel to go lay her stuff on the bed out in the other room, she brushed lightly up against Angels arm. As she did so Riise jerked away roughly and tried to avoid Angels eyes as she pushed the sudden vivid images of mass death from her head.

He looked at her with sudden concern when she had jerked away, "Are you ok Riise?" He asked as she staggered into the kitchen to grab herself a glass of water, avoiding looking at him. She seemed to be really out of it suddenly, as he watched her try to drown whatever had just happened in water.

"I-I'll be fine...I just...nevermind." She replied, not wanting to tell him the truth, she couldnt, he would think shes absolutely nuts. Instead, she changed the topic, "Will Blondie be here with my stuff soon?"

* * *

Ok well theres the first chapter, read and review to everyone who reads my work, its always appreciated, even if its nothing but flames. Next chapter should be up soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Ok heres chapter 2, nothing really graphic in it, a little mention of nudity but nothing in details...your so called virgin eyes shouldnt be harmed. now on with the reading and reviewing!

* * *

Chapter 2

Riise was left alone in her suite. She had hooked up her small mp3 player to the surround sound system of her new stereo and she let the music play and took a shower. Washing her hair twice through, she rubbed some conditioner into her hair and quickly scrubbed down her body. Once she got out she was able to hear the music in the other room again and began singing to some of the lyrics as she dried herself off with a black towel. She wrapped the long fluffy black towel around herself and brushed her hair. She wasn't about to slip back into her bloodstained clothes that now currently lay in a hamper next to the sink in the bathroom, so she was forced to wait until Spike brought her duffle bag of her clothes and belongings.

Making her way out into the main room she smiled and turned the music up a bit more, even though she was only in a towel she still found it suitable to dance and sing to the music. Yet as she swayed her hips back and forth and sung in tune, she neglected to notice the front door opening and the blonde slipping inside with her duffle bag and a notebook in hand. Amusedly, Spike walked into the main room putting the bag on the floor and sat himself on the edge of the bed, notebook in hand. He smirked as the song faded a few minutes later "Your singings almost as good as your poetry luv."

She nearly jumped out of her towel when she heard him speak from behind her. She spun around with anger written all over her face. "You better not be saying what I think your saying Spike!" She threatened through gritted teeth.

"Oh yes, brilliant poetry kitten. Bit dark and bloody though." He gave his sexy taunting smirk before continuing, "But that's just the way I like my imagery" He had managed to finish his sentence a split second before a swift red sting caught his left cheek. He simply smiled, enjoying pressing the girl's buttons. Even more so he enjoyed the view that her swift movement had caused, the black towel had fallen open and dropped to the ground. "Didn't expect that to happen now, bit of fire," he said as he raised his hand to his reddened stinging cheek, "and a nice view."

Riise grew extremely infuriated; his cockiness was getting to her. Although she didn't reach for the towel, she did crouch down and open the duffle bag. Withdrawing a few items of clothing from the bag she stood up and began pulling on the clothing. She didn't care that she had a cocky mouthed vampire watching her every move. Her indecency didn't matter as much as her personal thoughts that lay within the poetry filled notebook he had read. "So what...you have some 'ability' to tell my past from my poetry now?" Her voice thick with sarcasm as she pulled on a dark red and purple tank top and grabbed her long black wavy skirt from the bed to put on.

"Actually no, I used to write poetry all the time back in the day. Lorne's the one for reading people, empathic ability or something." Blondie explained, he had to admit, the girl had quite a bit of potential in her writings, and she just needed to lay off the morbid images. "Question though, why's everything so dark?"

"It's morning Blondie, unless you're going blind...and if you are I'm sure as hell that it wasn't my nudity that caused it." She replied flatly.

"I meant your poetry. Your lack of clothing though was far off from blinding though, luv." Spike turned to one of the pages of poetry, searching for one he was rather fond of. He began reciting the poem from the paper.

"You can't tell who ones family is by looking at relatives,  
You find that family by seeing who they cry about at night.  
To find a dead unknown brother dwelling in thoughts,  
Or a sister whom is a friend hundreds of miles away,  
Lovers only discovered in mindless fantasies lost to sanity.  
Only then will you see how that person lives day by day,  
Managing to keep them going.  
Looking past their scars instead of reading them,  
Can be the most careless motion.  
But once you see the soul in the scars.  
When you look into their eyes and see the fantasy created lover.  
When you miss that yeas long friend miles away,  
And learn to live on without the blood relatives.  
Then you can say,  
I understand,  
Until then, open your eyes."

Spike looked back up to see the slightly distant expression upon Riise's face as she stared back into his eyes as she had been while he read it. "Seems as though your running away from society luv. Mind sharing your insight on this one?" He calmly prodded her, trying to get her to open up more.

Riise stayed silent for a moment as she took in Spikes features for the first time. The words she had written seemed to flow past his pouty mocking lips with ease, as though it was right to be coming from his mouth. She faintly looked confused as she asked herself why she hadn't stopped him from reciting her poem labeled 'Ignorance doesn't know', for it was one of her most personal pieces of work. She finally brought herself back together as she opened her mouth to speak.

"It's exactly how it sounds. Just looking at a person's surroundings is never enough to even begin to realize what keeps a person ticking. How most people just give a glance over the surface of someone and think that they know what that person is all about. They never dive deeper to find out why they cry themselves to sleep at night, or what they see when the look into the night sky. It shows how alone one person really is, it shows how alone I really am." Her voice softened as she stopped speaking, she took the notebook into her own hands and scanned over the last few lines of the piece, "Funny isn't it? How I can keep going day by day and never dwell on a physical being as a lover? End up resorting to little fantasy worlds." She laughed at herself; she must truly be alone if she could have thought up such a thing. She tossed the book onto the bed beside Spike.

"Well the way you put it, I guess we are all alone after all. But we all end up dwelling in one another's misery." He said in closure about the poem. Figuring that after her little joke about herself that she didn't want the conversation to go on any longer. "So, how about we get you some breakfast." Spike stood up and offered his hand out to Riise so he could lead the way to food.

Riise sighed inwardly and managed a smile "Eating breakfast with a vampire. How much more ironic could it get?" She joked. Without thinking of her previous physical interactment, she took his hand. Pulling out of his grasp in shock as yet again images of death and blood scurried through her mind. "My god.." She muttered to herself as she dropped to her knees, her face littered with shock.

Spike furrowed his brow in confusion and concern as on the moment of contact of their hands she had yanked her arm away and fell to her knees in some sort of shock. "What happened? Pet, Riise?" He knelt down in front of her and looked into her shocked face. In an effort to pull her out of her unexplainable shock he grasped her shoulders and shook her a bit. The only result in the extended touch was a flashback of his past, he was brutally torturing one of her victims with railroad spikes. The flashback was gory yet brief, and unexplainable.

"William the bloody" She gasped as she looked up into his eyes and pulled out of his grasp. Silently hoping and praying it had just been a result of stress, she ran into the kitchen and drowned her mouth in water. Spike had come up behind her and watched her with confusion.

"Mind telling me why you saw my past luv?"

"I-i don't know...same thing happened with Angel earlier...except...the visions were worse." Her eyes narrowed and turned down to the floor on the other side of the room. She kept her eyes averted away from Spike to try and avoid any more of questions of the like. But yet her attempt was clearly looked past as he pulled her face up to meet his again, this time ignoring the small flashback that occurred from the contact.

"How long has this happened for?" His words were as strong as the look on his face, his blue eyes bore right through hers as to try and prevent her from lying or ignoring him.

She stayed silent for a few seconds before allowing herself to meet his eyes with hers. "Nearly 7 years..."

"You didn't tell peaches when you looked into his past, did you?"

She pulled away and went to grab her patchwork leather jacket from the bag and slipped it on, "No, I didn't see the point. He doesn't seem exactly like the understanding type. With the way he was brooding around me, and with what I saw of his past...I didn't exactly want to bring anything like that up."

"You need to see Lorne..."

"Who?"

"Lorne, the green man. Loves to sing he does, also does readings on people. I have a feeling he might be interested in you pet."

"Fine...but I'm still hungry."

"After breakfast then." He walked over to her large bed and swiftly picked up the poetry notebook, "If you don't mind, I'd like to read through a few more of these." He requested, and without waiting for an answer he stuffed it into his back pocket since the book was so small.

He received narrowed glaring eyes, "And if I said that I do mind? Would I have to fight you to reclaim my notebook?"

With a sly grin Spike replied, "I'd dance with you anytime pet."

"Oh lets just go already..." She said aggregately and snatched her suite's keys off from the counter and headed out the door.

* * *

In his office Angel was talking with Lorne about his odd little interaction with the new girl when he took her to the suite. He explained as Riise went to leave the bathroom that he had a quick yet sudden flashback of moments in his bloody past, and that the girl looked deeply disturbed as if she had also seen the flashback then ran to get a glass of water to calm her.

"It was so..." Angel paused searching for the word.

"Odd? Disturbing? Unique? sexy?" At the end of his little list of helpful words he snickered to himself, he knew that the situation was awkward and unique but he had to lighten the mood at least a few degrees.

Lorne had earned a moody glare from Angel, "Unnerving...I assure you Lorne, a flash from my past and a disturbed girl isn't exactly sexy."

"Well I'm sorry Angelcakes, I was only bringing the mood up in here. Tell you what, if you're that concerned about the girl I'll do a reading on her."

"I'm not concerned...I'm just-" He quickly defended himself and then paused, unsure of what to say next.

"Don't worry about it; I'll take care of it. It sounds like it's in my area anyways. Unless you'd rather send her off to Wesley."

"Wesley? No, it sounds like it's in your area."

Almost immediately after their conversation was resolved about Riise and what had happened before, the doors to Angel's office flew open, with two people entering the office. Spike and Riise, they seemed to be in a deep debate about how they get the jelly filling in the middle of the dounuts.

"God Spike, your theory is all wrong. You see even a few thousand years ago they were making donuts and they didn't use that little syringe like thing to 'inject' the filling into the center of the donuts, it would make them blow up anyways. They used the magics to put the creamy gooey centers into the yummy little pastries." Riise seemed ready to defend her theory on donut jelly even if it killed her doing so. Angel cleared his throat to get their attention, which didn't seem to work as he had hoped.

"Not everyone knew the magics back then pet. They had to have someway other then magic to get the jelly in them."

"But you see Blondie, that's the glory of it. All the bakers that specialized in the jelly donuts were involved in the magics...look it up if you don't believe me!"

Angel seemed to have quite enough of their debate and broke it up, "Ok, I'm sure the history of Jelly Donuts is very interesting, but there's a more important matter at hand here." He seemed to have gotten their attention for the time being. Riise turned around to face Angel and discovered that Angel wasn't the only other person in the room with them, Lorne was also in the room as well, the one Spike had briefly told her about. She seemed very uncomfortable and nervous, as if her disturbing little ability was known to the entire room now, which it was.

Spike spoke up first, realizing that Angel had rounded up Lorne for the soul purpose of reading Riise to see what exactly she had going on with her. "Well Riise...this is Lorne I told you about earlier. Lorne...Riise Liam." He quickly introduced the two and took a seat on the sofa behind him, he left the conversation as he indulged himself in the poetry he found oh so interesting.

Lorne smiled at the slightly unnerved girl, "From what I hear you and Angel had quite the little episode earlier."

Riise studied the red eyed green scaled horned demon before her and simply nodded slowly, "Well I guess that's all out in the open now..." She commented in a lowly tone, and then continued with a sigh, "So I might as well also say it happened with Spike too...and before you ask it started about 7 years ago, and no I don't know what it is or the cause of it."

"Well there goes all the little questions out the window." He joked with a smile. "I'd like to do a reading on you Riise. All you do is have to sing your little heart out to me ok?"

Riise's light brown eyes widened, "Sing? um..I-i cant...sing..that is..." She felt really uncomfortable all of the sudden, what if he found something majorly wrong with her, she was more scared of knowing what it is then not knowing at the moment.

"Bollocks! You can sing fine pet, you sung your lil heart out earlier in that towel member?" Spike mocked and kept her from worming her way out of this.

"So not helping Blondie...Cant you like, read through my poetry...instead of having me sing?"

"Sorry shortcake, I can't read into your soul through your poetry. But I do believe poetry is more Spike's specialty...given his background and all." He gave a comforting smug smile.

"Oh right...William the bloody...with hopes his skills as a poet has increased through the long years." She sighed.

"Hey! Don't you be bringing me into this Riise! My skills as a poet are not the thing in question here...now start your singing..."

Riise sighed, it seemed inevitable to worm her way out of. "Fine..." She absolutely despised audiences, but it seemed she had absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever. She sat herself on the arm of the sofa Spike was sitting upon and tried to think of a song yet none came to mind. "Any song whatsoever?" She received a simple nod in response.

"Today I'm missing something In this small New England town.  
Here's to you my best friend.  
Just wanted to say that I miss Having you around.

I'm staring at your pictures And dreaming that I could hold your hand.  
We'd walk down to the ocean And I would write your name in the sand.

They say sometimes you need some time apart But I've got a bad case of broken heart.  
And you're the only one who's got the cure.  
And I can't live another day without seeing you smile.

2000 miles between us and I guess that I'm the one to blame.  
Relationships and heartaches,  
These two things are one and the same.

The radio plays a love song.  
I smash my fist right through the dial.  
Here's to the broken hearted.  
A generation born in denial.

They say sometimes you need some time apart But I've got a bad case of broken heart.  
And you're the only one who's got the cure.  
And I can't live another day without seeing you smile."

The song she decided to sing was one of her absolute favorites, 'Bad case of broken heart by The Ataris'. She had kept her eyes fixated out the window and along the buildings she saw below the high level of room they sat in. She couldn't bring herself to watch the faces of her audience. Riise was so withdrawn to most people that she didn't take the time to get to know what she thought of her abilities. But she knew it was a very low view. It took her a moment to gather the courage within her to turn and face everyone. Everyone was silent, she frowned taking it as a very bad sign and stood up and stepped closer to the window, diverting her attention to the distance to the ground below.

Lorne had heard hundreds of people sing in his time, but none of the souls he had looked into seemed as mixed together as the one he had just seen. Most things about her seemed blurred, he had seen a few glimpses of her past, which in each image she was always hiding or running away from it. He did however discover hidden grief and torment behind the girl's walls. As well as the reason why she had begged of death the night before.

Angel seemed almost dumbfounded, the song she had decided to sing was so heart dropping but the way she sung it made it seem lighter then what it was written to be. Although Angel had no interesting abilities like Lorne had, he could feel something from her singing, a form of understanding, almost as a few pounds was lifted from his shoulders. "So..um Lorne, you pick up anything?"

Riise turned around to finally face her audience as they began to speak, her eyes fixated upon Lorne as he nodded, "You said she begged for her own demise last night? Well there may be a definite reason for that." He looked over to Riise to see her eyes darken as she tried her best to tune out what he was about to say next, but he continued. "Pumpkin...how could you? Why did you kill her Riise?" His voice that seemed sweet and kind quickly became serious and flat toned as he said her real name, he stepped towards her to try and get an answer from her. Riise stayed silent and avoided all eye contact in the room. Lorne tried to persuade her to speak as he rested a comforting hand upon her shoulder, and like the others he received a flashback, except that with his unique empathic seer ability he saw into her past instead, no shadiness like when she sung, no walls hiding anything from him. He saw everything. He gasped as he pulled his hand away. Riise was nearly in tears as she pulled herself out of the flashback with as much mental force as she could muster.

"Empath!" Lorne said in a gasp and stepped back a few steps and held his hand as if it was burning. The two vampires looked at him with the utmost confusion waiting for the demon to elaborate. "She's a very powerful empath..being able to channel someone's darkest times of their lives into herself. To take away the pain and corrupt feelings such times had caused the person. Except...she doesn't know how to control it. That's how she killed her...that's how she killed her sister." He stopped and dropped his hands to his sides.

This was too much for Riise, too exposing, she had just been dumped back into the past she had tried to hard to run from. Away from the murder. Away from that girls face. That's all she had done, run, and that's all she could do now. She took off at top speed from the office; there went too many people wandering around the building this close to noon. Everyone seemed to be off at lunch. She would have been thankful for this if her mind was with her at the moment. Riise ran into down the halls and finally into a room with an open door. It seemed to be a form of miniature library. 'This will do' she thought and shut the door. She walked over to one of the corners and pulled out a book from the large shelf and sat in the light of the window. She opened the book which seemed to be of some ancient demon language, she began some light reading until she could calm down.


End file.
